Psycho Beach Party (NR) No Rating

Gidget goes schizoid in this campy send-up of '50s beach movies crossed with B grade horror thrillers.

Story

Surfers wipe out big time as hacked up body parts keep washing up in this kooky over-the-top spoof. Drag diva Charles Busch plays police Capt. Monica Stark, hot on the trail of a serial killer. Her chief suspect is sweet Chicklet, a plucky bobbysoxer who wants to surf with the beach boys. What psychosexual trauma in Chicklet's childhood subconscious is causing her personality to fracture into that of a toxic vixen?

Acting

Lauren Ambrose ("Can't Hardly Wait") comically pinballs from one goofball genre cliché to another as she plays the squeaky clean Chicklet and split personalities such as a black girl from the streets and a villainous femme fatale. In a droll, nuanced performance, Busch lampoons the tough-but sensitive woman cop with a secret past. Other cast members -- "Dharma and Greg's" Thomas Gibson as a rhyming hep cat, Matt Keeslar as a sinister Swede -- revel in rampant parodies, mock bad acting and faux innocence infused with a twisted gay sensibility.

Direction

Robert Lee King's adaptation of Busch's Off Broadway play is awash in kitsch, giddy homoeroticism and bold colors. Not unlike John Waters' "Serial Mom" or a twisted take on "Pleasantville," this savvy satire of Americana features fun sequences of beefcake wrestling, dance contests at a Hawaiian luau, trashy shock-value gruesome appendages and cheesy special effects as sound stage surfers ride the waves before a filmed backdrop.

Bottom Line

More music, more dance and more Busch would surely have enhanced this frivolous punch-drunk escapade.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starring Lauren Ambrose, Beth Broderick, Matt Keeslar, Nicholas Brandon and Amy Adams.

Directed by Robert Lee King. Produced by Marcus Hu. Screenplay by Charles Busch. Released by Strand Releasing.